HIGH FALLS � Joan Ewing and Wilton Duckworth, caretakers of Camp Epworth's Permaculture Center, celebrated the Columbus Day weekend by inviting volunteers to start the finishing touches on the center's straw bale house that had its timber-frame-raising in July of 2008.

The three-day event concluded on Sunday, which happened to be the date 10/10/10. This day was significant as this was an international day of action to fight climate change that united more than 7,000 events in 183 different countries. The center's volunteers got in a circle and held hands at 10 minutes after 10 a.m. and each said 10 words honoring the worldwide observation of offsetting carbon in the atmosphere and reducing our carbon footprint.

Volunteer Gail Swithenbank's ten word homage was, "We have hit Peak Oil � Permaculture will save the World."

Permaculture is a system of human habitation that emphasizes sustainability in land-use and all other aspects of human activity. Ewing and Duckworth are the founders of Green Phoenix Permaculture and in Duckworth's words, they "believe that a person's dwelling should be a physical connection between people and the earth with the potential to be an extension of the earth's nervous system."

Said Duckworth, "Our shelters should be something that connect us rather than separate us from our world."

Hence, his craftsmanship of a straw-bale dwelling connecting human activity and nature to this global movement.

The just-shy of 1,000-square foot straw bale house is timber-framed with wood from the center's acreage, which was cut and milled to be constructed in the way homes were built from the Colonial era to the 1840's.

Duckworth said, "It's less flammable than a typical house as the mud is on the outside and inside the walls; and we get the tightest bales so air doesn't easily get in there."

The house's interior and enourmous ceiling beams are held by drop-in dowels and mortise and tenon joints, a method used for centuries for its strength and longevity.

One of the south facing walls has mud insulation as mud not only absorbs the sun's heat but conducts warmth, providing the dwelling with passive solar energy. This wall is called a "cob wall." In addition, the house will have the supplemental heat source of a wood-burning stove, which will use wood from the center's own landscape.

The straw insulation within the wood frame is hand-covered with clay, pushed in to become the first layer of the interior walls, with the next layer being made of clay, plaster and sand. The final layer of the interior walls is done with Kaolin clay, which came from a Kerhonkson dealer. Duckworth said that a majority of the materials came from local sources. The floors are mud and brick, a "thermal mass" that also retains much heat.

Some of the volunteers were quite creative in their finishing touches. The house features a decorative stem wall made of local stone. One part of the stem wall is a representation of the sun and its rays, while another unique touch presents itself on the left side of the doorway in the form of a tiny alcove with a decorative base. On one interior wall a creative artisan added strands of straw into the clay mixture to reveal a touch of natural texture. The walls will, eventually, be painted in either milk or clay paints with natural pigmentation.

With the finishing touches made and electricity and running water installed, Duckworth and Ewing will be living at the dwelling for a certain amount of time, although this straw bale house belongs to Camp Epworth.

Duckworth left an architectural practice in Manhattan so he and Ewing could build Green Phoenix on a full-time basis and also continue the building of the sustainable education center at Camp Epworth.

"We've been doing this for the past five years and loving it," said Duckworth.

For more information about Camp Epworth's sustainable education center call Wilton Duckworth at 845-687-7646.